How Many Teams Are in the NBA? Basketball Expansion Over the Years

By 1946 the game of basketball began to grow rapidly around state fairs and traveling entertainment groups, but no one had been successful in establishing a league that plays in arenas. The Basketball Association of America (aka the BAA) was seen as the premier league at the time and would eventually be renamed the NBA. Their main competitor was the National Basketball League or NBL.

On August 3rd, 1949, the last remaining NBL teams located in Syracuse, Anderson, Tri-Cities, Sheboygan, Denver, and Waterloo merged and joined the NBA, making the league a basketball powerhouse.

This new league was made up of seventeen franchises before consolidating to eight franchises in 1954. Those teams, who all still remain franchises today, were the New York Knicks, Boston Celtics, Philadelphia Warriors, Minneapolis Lakers, Rochester Royals, Fort Wayne Pistons, Milwaukee Hawks, and Syracuse Nationals.

In 1967 the NBA faced their largest threat, the American Basketball Association (the ABA). Both leagues threw huge amounts of money at the sports top prospect at the time, a kid from UCLA named Lew Alcindor, better known today as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. At the same time the NBA saw one of it's legends leave to join the ABA in Rick Barry.

The ABA began to sign college undergraduates in the 1970s, which proved to be a huge threat to the NBA. In response, they began rapidly expanding their own league. In 1970 the Portland Trailblazers, Cleveland Cavaliers, Buffalo Braves, and San Diego Clippers all made their debut, and by 1974 the league had blossomed to 18 teams.

Following the 1976 season there was a decline in ratings, league attendance, and a burgeoning issue with players dealing with drug addiction. The ABA could not keep up financially and eventually merged with the NBA, sending over four of their remaining franchises – the San Antonio Spurs, Denver Nuggets, Indiana Pacers, and New York Nets. This brought the number of teams in the NBA up to twenty-two.

The Dallas Mavericks were added as an NBA franchise in the early 1980s, but the league saw its next real big surge of expansion in 1988. On the backs of the popularity of stars like Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, and a young up-and-comer in Michael Jordan, the board of governors approved for the expansion to four cities including the Charlotte Hornets, Miami Heat, Orlando Magic, and Minnesota Timberwolves.

In 1995, the NBA expanded across borders for the first time since in 1946, with the addition of the Toronto Raptors and Vancouver Grizzlies. One year later the NBA established the WNBA, a professional basketball league to be made up of the best female basketball players in the world.

The league finally hit their total of thirty teams with the expansion of the Charlotte Bobcats in 2004. When the Hornets relocated to New Orleans in 2002, Charlotte was vacant and another franchise was quick to step-in. The Bobcats later renamed themselves the Charlotte Hornets, after the New Orleans Hornets rebranded themselves the New Orleans Pelicans.

There is no official word on when the NBA will expand again, but two cities stick out that could easily sustain a franchise. There is a very real chance we see Las Vegas and Seattle hosting teams in the near future. LeBron James has made it clear if he is to become an owner one day (which he has the means to do) he wants it to be in Las Vegas.